Tuesday, July 20, 2010

The LFD tool's potential dark side?

First off, let me say this... I have nothing but the utmost love for the LFD tool that Blizzard implemented. Never has dungeon grouping been any easier and faster. Sure, as a DPS I may have griped about the queue times, but still a 14 minute wait while you're out doing dailies is nothing compared to sitting parked on your mount going "LF Tank for *insert dungeon name here*" for an hour.

Now then, Jaedia made a new post earlier today at her absolutely amazing blog The Lazy Sniper about the possible downside of the LFD tool. (Go ahead and read her post, i'll wait....) I left a comment on the blog, and as I was typing I got to thinking a bit. While I can understand, to a point, what she was saying in regards to the lack of "reaching out" among your server, I think the LFD could have brought out something much much darker. We've all seen them, we've all reported them, we've all been highly irritated when they're back in-game the next day... the ever loathed trade chat troll.

Now don't mince words. I am by no means blaming trade trolling on LFD. Trade trolls were around before the LFD was released, and they'll continue to be until the end of time. One thing I have noticed, however, is that since the dungeon finder went live the AMOUNT of trade chat trolling has gone absolutely through the roof. Think back a few months to before 3.3, if you will. Sure, there were still idiots in trade, but what was the majority of the discussion you saw in there? Most likely it was "Looking for X(role) for Y(dungeon) or Z(raid)". Now sure, you still see osme of that going on for raids, and the occasional achievement-run heroic, but honestly... what's the most you see in trade these days? "Anal [unfunny ability name/achievement name]", "LOLUMADBRO?", "*Insert overused Chuck Norris joke here*", "Why do they call it 'Invincible' if you can still see it?", "LFG FOR TOC 10, 6K GS REQUIREMENT" (as said by a level 39), and so on and so forth. In my experience, MOST of trade chat is made up of trolling instead of legitimate chat for any particular purpose.

Now, where's the correllation between the influx of idiots and the dungeon finder? Well, I don't know about you but I tend to remember the names of the more prevalent trolls. If i'm putting together a group, be it a heroic or a raid or whatever, and I get a whisper from someone that's well known for being an assface in trade chat then i'm gonna ignore it. I don't care if they're in Ensidia or Paragon or anything (which aren't on my server BTW). A dick is still a dick, and I play this game to have FUN. I'd rather fail at a raid then succeed under duress. (Pardon me while I pull myself back to the point). Anyway, people are more apt to behave if they felt like they needed people on the server for anything. No one gives two shits about the Terms of Service, and that's apparent day in and day out. Either that, or they just have absolutely no fear of being banned, but that's a WHOLE other rant on it's own...

6 comments:

it also has to do with a few other things1. school. is out. for. summer!2. school. is out. for. ever!3. school's been blown to pieces....4. people are bored in game now, content downed, waiting for new content, so they hang in trade5. some people aren't bothering with wrath content since again the quest greens are better than LK gear. so they hang in trade6. guilds breaking up, splitting, etc, so they hang in trade7. it's 5:45am, and i'm just bored.

Ya know, in my experience, the worst "elitists" in trade, pugs, and so on, are also not the best players, and I find myself joining their high GS requirement pugs and being top on damage - that's not quite right is it? Of course, there are also the top guild elitists, and the "I've been on this server for 15 years" elitists, as well.

You do have a point though, and it was one I almost made but I didn't feel it was a good fit for the post I wrote. The easier it is for players to gear up, the more elitist and dickish to people they will be.

@Morkuma, all valid points, but the LFD came out before school let out for the summer ;)

@Jaedia I wasn't even really referring to "elitists" in trade. Elitist fools are a whole other breed of people I don't like dealing with (but sometimes end up doing so anyway). What i'm mainly referring to are the anal game playing, chat spamming, MORONS who hang out in trade all day doing nothing more than make stupid jokes and cry out for attention.

As have been mentioned, I think a lot of it has to do with school being out. I don't really remember noticing that trade chat became worse after the LDF tool - to me trade chat has always been pretty horrible. The one thing LFD have changed for me is two-fold; partly I can easier do HCs but there's also a lot less interaction between the players in the group since you most likely will never see them again. I find myself hard pressed to even get a "hello" and "good-bye" lately.

I think it's because people don't feel connected to their servers anymore. Before the LFD you would make and join groups on your server and slowly get to know more people. I think the increased trolling is just a byproduct both from how ever since the LFD was introduced folks tend to see people as tools(not in the insult sense) not people, and the server is mostly faceless to them as they don't know or need most of them. They want interaction from more people and they can no longer get that interaction from the graveyard silent super fast run other server PuGs.

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About Me

I'm a simple 28 year old game lover. I've been playing WoW for about 2 years now, and my life has never been the same (lol). I recently stumbled my way into wowblogging kind of by a casual throwaside notice I saw on one of my favorite webcomics, and now here I am.